The Acid Diaries (Christopher Gray) / quote 20 of 125
Blindfold, earphones and the psychedelic language
I tripped in the bedroom again, and again had a wonderful afternoon, which I spent in almost exactly the same way—the most intense part of the trip with the blindfold and earphones, then the bath, then the walk on the Heath. In fact, from the first my tripping tended to ritualize itself. I began to take a 100-microgram trip every second or, more frequently, every third weekend. To my surprise, the blindfold and earphones worked brilliantly. The blindfold allowed me to let go of the world and other people completely, while the music was like an Ariadne’s thread I could follow through whatever happened. Should things threaten to become overwhelming, I just went back to concentrating on the music. Rather than feeling at the mercy of my mind, I felt more open and relaxed than I ever had when I tripped in my youth. The real change the blindfold brought was to make me more aware of my emotions. As the trip came on, it made them bigger and clearer, like a magnifying glass. Yet at the same time I would have been hard put to verbalize what I was feeling so intensely. Something incredibly poignant was trying to thrust itself into my awareness, but I still couldn’t see what it was. I kept arching my spine, trying to loosen the tension I felt in my lower back. When it came, the rush was like a dam breaking. Psychologically I was bowled over by a wave of collective and symbolic material. LSD must be God’s gift to the Jungians, I remember thinking, during one of the moments I surfaced from the flood of visions, voices, and emotions. These followed one another so fast I had difficulty keeping up with them, dazzled by the bravura of the . . . psychedelic language, or so I came to call it.